Mental Health Juvenile Justice 66250

The Mental Health Juvenile Justice Initiative (MHJJ) is an Illinois Department of Human Services, Division of Mental Health (DMH) program that identifies juveniles in detention centers with severe mental illness. As the program targets the most severely mentally ill children who are already being held in detention, it focuses on minors who are in the most trouble and are the most clinically disturbed of all those children in the Illinois Juvenile Justice System. Should we receive renewed funding, the project team at MHSPP will continue the evaluation of the MHJJ with an expanded scope of service to include Outpatient Fitness Restoration Services with the ultimate goal of identifying the most efficacious ways of delivering mental health services to youth with seriously mental illness who have become involved with the justice system throughout the state. Under MHJJ, a local community mental health agency provides the court with a liaison whose full time job it is to link eligible minors to community based mental health services and wraparound services. The liaison conducts a preliminary assessment of minors exhibiting symptoms or behaviors that might suggest mental illness. For those who are found to have a severe mental illness, the liaison creates a treatment plan that indicates what services the juvenile needs (including not only mental health, but also substance abuse, special education, and public health), locates where these services are available in the community, and identifies how to pay for these services. The plan is then given to the court. The liaison does not interfere with the criminal case, but informs the court that it has a minor in detention that has a major mental illness with specific needs that can be treated in the community. If the minor is released to the community, the liaison assists the family with linkage to needed services for a period of six months.